Submitting Material to the Classification Board

The Classification Board made nearly 6,800 decisions in the 08/09 financial year and the Classification Operations Branch (formerly the OFLC) processed more than 6,600 applications from companies such as yours. The Board itself is a small team, with approximately 15 individuals viewing material on any given day. The Applications Section, which handles all applications in the first instance, prepares them for the Classification Board and responds to all enquiries, is a team of just ten people.

The processing of applications by both the Applications Section and the Classification Board is governed by strict deadlines set out in the Classification Act and Regulations, with the turnaround of standard applications having a 20 working day limit, and a five day limit on priority-paid applications. Many applications are complex, and many run to over 1000 minutes. All of this makes the process of classification demanding and time-critical. Despite these restrictions, the Board always does whatever is in its power to accommodate specific needs and individual circumstances.

One of the many critical issues in the process is the state of the material submitted for classification, the DVDs, blu-rays, publications and games of various formats. In order to provide timely classification services to you, the Classification Board asks you to consider the following:

• Please test your discs and ensure they work before submitting them – many applications are stalled when it is discovered that discs are faulty, and often this isn’t discovered until well into the 20 day turnaround period. This can seriously disadvantage production and marketing schedules.
• Do not provide films or TV series on an excessive number of separate discs – you should attempt to consolidate material whenever you can onto fewer discs with reasonable viewing durations (e.g. 100 or 200 mins). An application containing 25 separate discs of 20 minute TV episodes can cause delays in processing due to continuous loading and unloading of discs and tracking disc numbers and order, particularly if discs contain extraneous material. This is particularly the case for blu-ray.
• Try to ensure what you submit resembles the make-up of the final product intended for market – submitting a single program over several discs, sometimes containing extraneous material, is confusing and time-wasting. As far as possible, what you submit should be what will appear in Australian shops.
• Be clear about what is to be classified – The Classification Board understands that in some circumstances you will need to submit discs that include material you do not want to include in the application. This is not an ideal situation, and the Board is not obliged to accept such material, so please make clear on your application in writing what is to be viewed and what is to be ignored. If you need to, copy material to another disc so it’s in the correct order and reflects the final product. If it’s confusing and untidy to you, it will be confusing and untidy to the Classification Board.
• If you are applying for a classification of a game, include a disc showing examples of game-play illustrating the highest classifiable elements of the game. This will be a great help to the Classification Board and potentially speed up the classification process.
• Game code should be provided in a format which is ready to be played. If you are unsure what formats are acceptable, please refer to the list of acceptable formats for the submission of computer games, or contact our technical support team at sydiks@classification.gov.au or 02 9289 7115.
• Gameplay footage and any other documents should be provided on a separate disc. Please do not put video files on the same disc as the game code.
• For clients submitting 35mm prints, they must arrive “head-out”.
• Leave time in the production/marketing cycle for the classification of your product – many applicants fail to leave sufficient time for the Board to classify material before it goes to market. We make every effort to complete classifications as soon as possible, but due to the large and constant stream of applications the Board must reserve the right to use all the processing days allocated to it by legislation if circumstances dictate.

The Classification Board and the Applications Section are keenly aware of the many issues facing distributors, producers, importers and marketers of classified material in Australia, but applicants must take responsibility for making the effort to present material in way that is easy and clear to access and interpret if we are to keep to, and improve, classification turnaround times. In some circumstances, the Classification Board has the right to reject or halt an application in the scenarios described above. To help avoid this situation, please take note of the suggestions above. If you are in any doubt, please contact an Applications Officer.

Sending in material

Make sure that any material you send to us is marked with ‘Classification Operations Branch’ or ‘COB’ – not OFLC. The OFLC ceased to exist 3 years ago. If you don’t address your material correctly, it may be delayed or not arrive at all. Please make sure that any material posted is not addressed to the street address.

Material sent by post should be addressed to:
Classification Operations Branch
Locked Bag 3
Haymarket NSW 1240

Material sent by courier (i.e. FedEx) should be addressed to:
Classification Operations Branch
Level 5, 23 – 33 Mary Street
Surry Hills NSW 2010

Where can I get more information?

If you require additional information you can submit an enquiry or contact an appropriate officer on one of the telephone numbers below.

An application for classification
Senior Applications Officer
Telephone: (02) 9289 7100

Booking a screening for a public exhibition film
Applications Officer (Cinema)
Telephone (02) 9289 7119